Welcome back to Table Talk, where Daily Memphian writers and editors send the latest food news — along with a dash of this and that — directly to your inbox every Wednesday.

Like Joshua Carlucci, I’m a sucker for a good food list (or music list or movies list or books list or basketball list or…), and having authored a few big lists myself, I don’t tend to get mad at them.

If the list seems to come from a place of real knowledge and enthusiasm for its subject, I give it a lot of leeway. No one else’s ranking of bests is going to match yours. If it doesn’t seem to come from a place of real knowledge or enthusiasm, I just move along.

Southern Living’s recent list of “The South’s Top 50 Barbecue Joints of 2023” placed A&R Bar-B-Que at No. 11. (Joshua Carlucci/Special to The Daily Memphian)

So while some of my favorite Memphis barbecue spots are missing from Southern Living’s recent list of “The South’s Top 50 Barbecue Joints of 2023,” I’m not mad at it. 

This list was written by one person who put his name on it. That would be Robert J. Moss, the magazine’s “contributing barbecue editor” — now there’s a job — who has personally visited each of the 50 chosen restaurants across 11 states. This isn’t a listicle slapped together via internet searches. There’s a sensibility at work. I approve of the approach, even if Memphis proper only lands three places on the list. 

That would be the Rendezvous at No. 47, where Moss cites the in-the-alley atmosphere, the Greek-influenced dry rub and the sausage-and-cheese plate appetizer as highlights. 

There’s Cozy Corner at No. 25, where he cites smoky ribs and the signature Cornish hen.

And, in a bit of a surprise, there’s A&R Bar-B-Que at No. 11, which he says serves the city’s best pork sandwich.

Chris Herrington has eaten his way down Germantown Parkway and listed some of his favorite spots. (Chris Herrington/The Daily Memphian file)

Full disclosure: I’d been to both A&R’s Hickory Hill location and its since-closed Downtown location more recently than its original location on Elvis Presley Boulevard, which I corrected this week at Southern Living’s instigation (following behind Josh). There is a difference. That white-cinder-block smokehouse behind the main restaurant, the sights and scents of smoked magic billowing out into the midday air? A sign of seriousness backed up on your plate or in your to-go bag. 

Still, I’m gonna stick with Payne’s and Bar-B-Q Shop, unranked by Southern Living, as my two favorite pork sandwiches in town. A&R jumps to third on this revisit. 

The absence of Payne’s on the list hurts my barbecue heart a little bit, and the praise the list gives to Cozy Corner’s barbecue spaghetti really highlights the absence of Bar-B-Q Shop, whose version of the only-in-Memphis classic is far superior.

But again, it’s still a good list, even if it’s not mine. 

List fan that I am, I compiled a sublist while perusing this one, breaking the 50 entries down by broader region:

• The Carolinas: 17
• Texas: 15
• Tennessee/Arkansas/Kentucky: 8
• Georgia/Alabama/Florida: 7
• Kansas City: 2
• Maryland: 1

The Daily Memphian’s Joshua Carlucci recently visited A&R Bar-B-Que. (Joshua Carlucci/Special to The Daily Memphian)

Is there too much of a gap between the top two and the next two? Probably so. But the Carolinas and particularly Texas are vast. 

Memphis could have landed another half-dozen spots here, and there are a few others nearby I thought might show up: Jones Bar-B-Q in Marianna, Arkansas, Craig’s Bar-B-Q in DeVall’s Bluff, Arkansas, or Abe’s Bar-B-Q in Clarksdale, Mississippi.

Of note: There were three small-town barbecue joints on the list within a couple hours of Memphis, if you’re thinking about a road trip: Kibb’s Bar-B-Q in Stuttgart, Arkansas, at No. 44; Helen’s Bar-B-Q in Brownsville, Tennessee, at No. 29; and B.E. Scott’s BBQ in Lexington, Tennessee, at No. 10. 

Moving on.

Technically speaking, fall begins this weekend.

Neelyís Interstate Bar-B-Que owner Jim Neely inspects a batch of rib tips that is smoking in the back of his south Memphis restaurant Aug. 13, 2020. (Patrick Lantrip/The Daily Memphian file)

In Memphis, as we know, what is technically fall and what feels like fall isn’t always a match. There’s a high of 88 degrees on Saturday. Fall? 

You make the call.

But it is fall festival season, and the Mid-South Fair, which now takes place at the Landers Center in Southaven, starts this week. 

If you missed it, we pre-gamed on last week’s Sound Bites podcast with a discussion of common fair/festival foods and ones we’d like to see become more common ‘round these parts. I’m certain you can get a Pronto Pup, funnel cake or smoked turkey leg at the Mid-South Fair. Churros, “Bayou bites” or cheese curds? If you see ’em, let us know.

If the Mid-South Fair is the big one, it’s not the only one this week. The Pink Palace Crafts Fair is at Audubon Park from Friday to Sunday.

You can buy two things at Jones’: A white-bread sandwich or pulled pork by the pound. In 2012, the tiny restaurant received an America’s Classic award from the prestigious James Beard Foundation. It was the first Beard award to go to an Arkansas restaurant in any category. (Jennifer Biggs/The Daily Memphian file)

On a more food-and-drink forward front, Latin Fest 901 is going down at Overton Square on Saturday with lots of Latin food, music and more. And Wiseacre brewery’s annual Oktoberfest celebration with the Mighty Souls Brass Band and a gaggle of food trucks will be Saturday at their original site on Broad Avenue. 

This is sort of a festival: A few weeks ago, I wrote about the soft opening of Buster’s Butcher on Highland Street. They’ll have their grand opening this Saturday from noon to 4 p.m. with food and beverage samples available both in the shop and next door at Buster’s Liquor Store. They’ll also be cooking up smash burgers on-site, with each purchase of $50 or more getting a burger. 

Some of those aforementioned topics – meat shops, Overton Square, Latin food – connect to some of our other food and dining coverage in recent days. 

Let’s start at Overton Square: Burger shop Belly Acres announced this week that it’s closed its Midtown location on the back side of the square. A social media post by the restaurant cited staffing issues, safety concerns and declining business for the decision. 

Owner Lee Scifres declined to mention any of those in his statement to The Daily Memphian, though other reports inflated the “safety concerns” comment into the restaurant purportedly closing due to crime.

Yogis leave class while dinners eat on the Belly Acres patio in Overton Square in this file photo. (The Daily Memphian file)

Staffing problems seem to be a restaurant industry constant these days. Declining business seems to be a wide concern, and “crime and safety” clearly weigh heavily on the psyche of Memphis these days, though connecting those two things gets fuzzier and seems like a “case by case” situation.

There’s not much evidence that crime and safety is a particular concern around Overton Square, at least relative to other restaurant-heavy areas of the city. It is notable that Belly Acres closing leaves a lot of vacant spaces there, with the former Hopdoddy and Schweinehaus locations on the square now long-empty. 

On Latin food: I wrote about El Pollo Latino, a new Colombian chicken restaurant on Summer Avenue whose opening was delayed a full year, in part due to staffing issues, per co-owner Samir Restrepo. 

Memphis loves chicken, and El Pollo Latino — which serves the bird at least six ways, leading with their succulent, well-spiced but not hot-spicy rotisserie chickens — is an excellent new entrant to the field. 

Inspired by the chicken-forward El Pollo Latino menu, I ranked 10 common methods of chicken preparation on this week’s Sound Bites, with notes on my favorite Memphis variations on each. Producer Natalie Van Gundy jumped on the mic to offer her reactions.

The whole rotisserie chicken served at El Pollo Latino on Summer Avenue. (Patrick Lantrip/The Daily Memphian)

On meat shops: Buster’s isn’t the only new premium butcher in the Memphis area. Primos has brought a similar concept, and similar commitment to quality, to Hernando, as Beth Sullivan reports. 

Speaking of both Overton Square and chicken, I crossed those streams on Sound Bites by citing Golden India’s Karahi tandoori chicken saag as a favorite dish. And as far as I’m concerned, we can’t have too many Memphis restaurants. So welcome to Cafe India, a rare Indian restaurant chain, as it comes to Hacks Cross. 

Thanks for reading. I hope you all eat well this week and that fall really is coming. 

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